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PEACEW RKS

AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEFENSE

AND SECURITY FORCES

Ali A. Jalali

[[MISSION, CHALLENGES, AND SUSTAINABILITY Cover photo: An Afghan National Army soldier listens during a training event hosted by the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force]. Nate Derrick/

Shutterstock.com.

The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Peaceworks No. 115. First published 2016.

ISBN: 978-1-60127-601-8

© 2016 by the United States Institute of Peace

ABOUT THE REPORT

This report examines the development of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), their cur- rent structure and capacity, and their challenges in secur- ing long-term financial and operational sustainability. The report also explores how the ANDSF can more effectively operate on a nonconventional battlefield and deal with emerging new threats of violent extremism - both alone and as part of a larger regional and global coalition. The information is based on field research and interviews conducted by the author in Afghanistan in 2015.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ali A. Jalali is a distinguished professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University and recently served as a senior expert on Afghanistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace. A former interior minister of Afghanistan (January 2003-October

2005), Jalali also worked for more than twenty years as

a broadcast executive in the Pashto, Dari, and Persian languages at the Voice of America in Washington, DC.

PEACEWORKS • MAY 2016 • NO. 115

CONTENTS

Introduction

5

Foundation of the ANDSF 5

International Support 7

ANDSF and the Government's Legitimacy 11

Size and Structure of the ANDSF 14

Current Capability Gaps 17

e Way Forward 25 [From inception, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces have experienced shifting political and security conditions that have impacted their size, structure, mission, and capacity.]

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AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY FORCES

Summary

From inception, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) have experienced shifting political and security conditions that have impacted their size, structure, mission, and capacity. e ANDSF have long been dependent on U.S. nancial and operational assistance, as well as support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. ey are expected to remain dependent on foreign aid for many years. Although well-designed on paper, the ANDSF's command and control structure does not function as intended. e structure is bureaucratically heavy at the top and weak at the bottom. Political interference and the circumventing of formal command levels often prevent the carrying out of established procedures, plans, and unit functions. Coordination across the Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police, and National Directorate of Security forces in the eld is dangerously lacking. e nature of shared decision making within the National Unity Government has led to delays in appointments, thus inhibiting the ability of Afghan security ministries and their forces to eectively exercise command and control. e ANDSF continue to experience major logistics, air power, and intelligence shortfalls, undermining their operational posture and the combat eectiveness of their troops. To avoid overextension and improve the space-to-force ratio, Afghan leadership may want to change the ANDSF operational posture from being defensive to oensive. is would mean prioritizing some areas and leaving other areas for local forces to cover. Remote, hard- to-reach locations would only be watched and hit where the enemy shows concentration. Given that the Taliban and other anti-Afghan government insurgents have operational and logistic infrastructure in Pakistan, the country has signicant control and inuence over them and can therefore play a key role in reducing the level of violence in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's long-term security strategy needs to focus on reducing threat levels through political settlement and building indigenous security capacity to respond to emerging threats.

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AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY FORCES

Introduction

On January 1, 2015, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) took over full security responsibility in Afghanistan, after the United States ocially concluded Operation Enduring Freedom and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ended the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission. e follow-on, NATO-led Resolute Support (RS) mission provides further training, guidance, and assistance to Afghan security forces and institutions. e U.S. Forces-Afghanistan transitioned to Operation Freedom"s Sentinel, contributing to both the NATO"s RS mission and continuing U.S. counterterrorism eorts against the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as DAISH). 1 In a revision of the initial White House plan to withdraw most U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, President Barack Obama decided to maintain the current troop level (9,800) for at least another year and to reduce only to a baseline of

5,500 afterward. It is expected that the level and strength of the residual military presence in

Afghanistan in future years will be revisited this spring under the new RS commander, General John Nicholson. Regardless, the impact of U.S. forces in Afghanistan depends less on their numbers and more on their assigned mission and rules of engagement. e ANDSF faced an upsurge of insurgent attacks in 2015 and largely held their own, albeit with a higher casualty rate. e ANDSF are expected to face continued security threats and violence at least in the immediate future, while international military and nancial assistance dwindles. e rise of new threats of violent extremism in the region, including from local supporters of ISIS, may turn the Afghanistan-Pakistan region into a hub for global terrorism. e ultimate goal for the United States and ANDSF should be building and sustaining indigenous defense and security capacity sucient to deal with existing and emerging threats in the region. is involves not only generating and maintaining adequate forces but also ensuring the ANDSF"s nancial sustainability, operational eectiveness, and ability to thwart adaptive enemies in primarily nonconventional combat.

Foundation of the ANDSF

Few reconstruction tasks have proved more dicult than building the capacity of indigenous security forces during war. Stabilization requires curbing the ability and desire of former combatants to renew violence and transforming militia structures into formal state institutions. is involves replacing war machines with a credible legal and political system, reestablishing public condence in state institutions, and shifting from a culture of violent opposition to a peaceful competition for power and inuence. It is a multifaceted process of “breaking" and “making." Breaking the war machines in the postconict period is a prerequisite for sustaining peace. However, failure to create attractive alternatives for former militia ghters can lead to instability, renewal of violence, and proliferation of criminal activity and banditry. Deactivating the war machines is an immediate need; making them obsolete is a long-term goal. erefore, the process must include making the use of war machines irrelevant. is can be achieved by creating national capacity to transform war-instigated structures into peacebuilding institutions. Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, has suered institutional, economic, social, and political destruction during a long period of war and violence. Numerous factional militias and nonstate armed groups emerged as a result of foreign intervention (1979-89) and civil war (1992-2001) - some with extensive foreign links. e breakdown of central authority

United States and ANDSF

should be building and sustaining indigenous defense and security capacity sufcient to deal with existing and emerging threats in the region.

6 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 115

6 over more than two decades of conict and violence stimulated a sociopolitical transformation in Afghanistan, which became dominated by nonstate patronage networks operating under the leadership of regional commanders who often invoked ethnic references to legitimize their leadership. e country became politically fragmented, economically bankrupt, and socially atomized, leading to a vortex of proxy wars waged by regional powers vying for inuence. Other challenges that emerged included a lack of basic infrastructure, low economic capability, corruption, and illiteracy. e 2001 military invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies was not initiated to x the failed Afghan state through military action and stability operations. Had the

9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States not happened, a U.S. intervention into Afghanistan

would have been unlikely. e U.S.-led military invasion targeted one side of the civil war (Taliban regime) and its in-country support network (al-Qaeda), in close alliance with the second party (anti-Taliban militias) in the civil war. In contrast to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. operation was launched with minimum American and allied ground troops supporting the local anti-Taliban militia forces (represented mainly by the

Northern Alliance).

2 e fall of the Taliban regime was celebrated as the end of the conict, but combat conditions lingered. On May 1, 2003, U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that major combat in Afghanistan was over. 3 is determination was mostly motivated by American political considerations rather than the situation on the ground. e authority of the central administration in Kabul hardly extended beyond the capital. In the next two years, clashes continued between local commanders, stemming from old rivalries or the desire to control or consolidate more territory. Standos between the Kabul-appointed governors of

Paktia and rebel forces kept the region unstable.

4

In the north, forces loyal to Uzbek General

Abdul Rashid Dostum, the leader of the Junbish Mili Islami (National Islamic Movement) party, and militia units controlled by Tajik Commander Atta Mohammad clashed in several provinces. In the west, ethnic dierences and rival claims for control of the Shindand District led to recurring skirmishes between militias loyal to the Herat strongman Ismail Khan and those supporting the local Pashtun leader Amanullah Noorzai. Enlisting militia commanders and warlords as coalition allies in ghting terrorism hindered the development of formal democratic institutions. e Bonn Agreement of 2001 stipulated that “upon the ocial transfer of power, all Mujahidin, Afghan armed forces and armed groups in the country shall come under the command and control of the Interim Authority, and be reorganized according to the requirements of the new Afghan security and armed forces." 5 ese rival factional militias were integrated into the government system but continued to respond only to their faction leaders, often instigating turf battles at the expense of public security. e U.S. military"s aid and reliance on these groups in the counterterrorism eort empowered them at the expense of formal state institutions. In December 2002, former president Hamid Karzai issued a decree banning political leaders from taking part in military activity. 6 However, he had little power to implement his decree so long as international actors were not interested in getting involved in intra-Afghan disputes and were more focused on ghting “terrorists." e co-option of the resurrected anti-Taliban Afghan militia forces in the campaign empowered them after the fall of the Taliban regime, which was removed from power but not decisively defeated or reconciled. Nor was al-Qaeda fully defeated, although its leadership and network were driven out of Afghanistan across the border into dicult-to-access tribal

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AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY FORCES

areas of Pakistan. As conict conditions endured, the south and east eventually exploded into a full-edged insurgency. Ultimately, the fall of the Taliban regime was not a transition from war to peace or from a conict to postconict situation but rather a new phase in the long-standing conict. e international eort to build post-Taliban state institutions in Afghanistan has today become one of the longest and costliest reconstruction projects in history. By the end of 2015, the United States alone had appropriated more than $113 billion dollars - of which more than 60 percent was invested in standing up the ANDSF. 7

In the past fourteen years, the

ANDSF have come a long way, transforming from an odd assortment of factional militias into a collection of modern security institutions with professional capacity and loyalty to a unied state. But despite signicant investments, international peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan have focused primarily on immediate tactical issues at the expense of long-term priorities. Building the army took precedence over constructing rule of law institutions, including the police, regardless of their key role in a postconict environment. e emerging police forces were organized as a paramilitary force, primarily intended to ght armed spoilers and protect the government rather than serve the public. Since the military intervention was deemed over, there has been an acute shortage of donor institutional capacity and resources for stability operations. Reintegration of former combatants has been a major challenge due to decreased and incremental funding, thus driving marginalized armed men to renew violence. e initial false assumption that the conict was over had a profound eect on the establishment and development of Afghanistan security forces. Planning for their size and capacity was based on an assessment of short-term political and security conditions that ignored the potential of strategic changes in the area, such as an upsurge in insurgency and activity of nonstate armed groups, as well as the dynamics of ongoing conict.

International Support

Unlike some other international postconict stability operations, no major international peacekeeping forces were deployed in Afghanistan. e U.S.-led coalition military forces were narrowly focused on ghting terrorism, while the U.N.-mandated ISAF was deployed only in Kabul, with a limited mandate and limited numbers. e wartime militias, which were integrated into the security forces of the interim administration, were ethnically divided and loyal to their factional leaders. e donor community"s goal was to build new Afghanistan security forces that would be nationally respected; professionally capable; ethnically balanced; democratically accountable; and organized, trained, and equipped to meet the security needs of the country. Building such national institutions became part of the Security Sector Reform (SSR) program. Formally established in April 2002 at a security donors conference in Geneva, the SSR program consisted of ve pillars, each supported by a dierent donor state: military reform (United States); police reform (Germany); the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants (Japan); judicial reform (Italy); and counternarcotics (UK). While all these pillars of reform and development were interconnected, they were pursued by dierent actors with varying levels of commitment, resources, priorities, and procedures. is stove-piping approach inevitably precluded a holistic approach to building state institutions and reform. e lack of coordination - both between donor states and between those states" implementing agencies - further hindered progress. is problem was compounded by insucient donor investment in the initial stages; the political inuence of nonstate armed groups and patronage the ANDSF have come a long way, transforming from an odd assortment of factional militias into a collection of modern security institutions with professional capacity and loyalty to a unied state.

But despite signicant

investments, international peacekeeping forces in

Afghanistan have

focused primarily on immediate tactical issues at the expense of long- term priorities.

8 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 115

networks; inadequate reform in the ministries of defense and interior; and the absence of a committed third-party military force to facilitate the process. e planned size and professional capacity of the Afghan security forces were not proportioned to the requirement of their mission to ght terrorism and insurgency while providing space for statebuilding and development. Nor was it attuned to the threat environment. e SSR program planned to build a 70,000-man Afghan National Army (ANA) and 62,000-man Afghan National Police (ANP) force, which took many years to accomplish. By 2005, the ANA and ANP could hardly eld more than 60,000 poorly trained and lightly armed troops and policemen. ey were no match to the threats faced by the vast majority of Afghan citizens, which included terrorists and insurgents, militia commanders, drug trackers, corrupt provincial and district administrators, and government incompetence. Like in many other postconict projects, the focus was more on building the army than the police. e focus on ghting terrorism and insurgency forced Operation Enduring Freedom to place its highest priority on rebuilding the armed forces, taking attention away from developing the police, which was badly in need of rebuilding. is subordinated justice to security considerations and turned the police into a tool primarily used in combating insurgency, instead of protecting law and justice. e national police had virtually ceased to exist after years of a devastating civil war. e ANP eort, and the reconstruction eort more broadly, faced a dearth of human resources; sparse or nonexistent equipment and infrastructure; politicized ethnic dierences that impede the impartial administration of justice; corruption and organized criminal activity; and the lack of a public service ethics and public administrative structures that can help foster professionalism and accountability. e German-led eort to create a new professional civilian-led ocer corps for the police ran into two major hurdles. First, the underresourced, long-term training program was not able to produce sucient numbers in a short time to meet immediate needs. e deployment of police across the country made it dicult to train policemen as single units, like army battalions, and then deploy them where they were needed. Police needed to be recruited, trained, deployed, and coached at the same time. e urgency to ll the ranks often reduced this process into a recruit-and-deploy practice. Second, local power brokers seized the title of police commanders, many of whom had questionable backgrounds including human rights abuses and drug tracking linkages. Political decisions to reintegrate “demobilized" former factional combatants into the police force further undermined the ANP"s development. In most cases, former factional commanders who were appointed to (or seized command of) the police loaded their oces with their unqualied supporters and corrupt cronies. e dominance of local loyalty and links with corrupt networks, along with poor training and low pay, contributed to endemic corruption in the police force. To augment the German-led eort, the U.S. Department of State"s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Aairs launched a massive, short-term training program in 2003, which helped train up to 40,000 patrolmen and police ocers in basic skills in a one-to-three-week program at police training centers, which were established in the capital and six regional centers. Meanwhile, Germany continued its multiyear training of senior police ocials. With the upsurge of insurgency in Afghanistan and the heavy involvement of the ANP in the counterinsurgency ght, the lead role in the U.S. police training eort was taken over by the Department of Defense in April 2005, while Germany"s traditional policing program was augmented by the combined European Police Program (Europol). In

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AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY FORCES

both cases, the ANP transformed mostly into a paramilitary force, ghting on the front lines of the counterinsurgency and sustaining the heaviest casualties. e U.S.-led eort to build the ANA was also slow, marred by problems in attracting recruits and by the lack of support from the Ministry of Defense (MOD), which was dominated by the Minister of Defense and Northern Alliance commander General Mohammad Qasim Fahim"s Panjsheri clique (which saw a strong military loyal to the state as a threat to its parochial power). 8 A plan for forming the army, drafted by a government commission and released by the MOD in October 2002, was criticized by Karzai and his foreign backers as an attempt to perpetuate the dominance of factional militias in the ANA. e plan awarded the militiamen command over military units when they reenlisted in the ANA. 9 e so-called “Long War" strategic approach to the “global war on terror," which dominated U.S. military thinking in the early 2000s, promoted a comprehensive and enduring long-term military engagement in areas threatened by international terror. 10

Along this line,

the presumption of an open-ended presence of international forces in Afghanistan with the expectation of no strong armed opposition tempered the urgency and pace of building indigenous security forces. e situation led to the chronic dependency of the ANDSF on international forces for enablers, including air cover; re support; air and ground mobility;quotesdbs_dbs48.pdfusesText_48

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